Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in kylaw's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
7:52 pm	It's a start. That's the first 1,000 words of Necropolitan down. Necropolitan, you will not be surprised to hear, is the sequel to Necromance, my complete but currently unpublished novel of dark passion and legal rites in contemporary Sydney. It ended with Vicky in a quite dreadful mess. I'm afraid things haven't improved. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
10:32 am	Beltane It Out On Opening Night Daylight: what's that again? The bright stuff that makes my eyes hurt? I thought that was a strobe. Anyway, busy couple of days Under the Blue Moon; specifically, the opening night of the Theatre of Blood followed by the All Hallows Eve Ball. Opening night sold out, which is encouraging. So, so delightful to lurk behind the curtain once again, listening to the sound of the theatre filling up! Never got much of a look at the audience - David assures me that a significant number were wearing fangs - but could certainly hear them! They started laughing during "Dr. Mortiss's" introductory speech - yes, that was a good thing - and throughout the plays they were there, buzzing, hissing, gasping, laughing at all the right things and a few that were wrong. We bathe in that, you know, up there on the stage. We drink it. Had you been there, you would have seen a fair amount of me, especially if you sort blacks well and were watching during set changes. I received an emergency promotion to Assistant Stage Manager midway through last week. I love our set; the gorgeous work of Anna Gardiner, with all its little nooks and crannies. But in any case, here it is: From Misc With a little of me, the Curator of the Daumier Wax Museum in The Guillotine. From Misc And the much more hospitable Madame Rivoire of At The Telephone. I'm going to state this: you will see more graphic and plentiful displays of human suffering on your average after-nine police procedural. This is because they can cut. We are about the presentation. The artistry. The build-up. Not knowing quite what we will prove capable of when - which is why I'm not showing you the pictures I have of Orgy in the Lighthouse. In any case, as the Reverend Mortiss says, "today's villians are merely the apprentices of those that came before." Overall, the show went very well. A broken Virgin here, a misplaced guillotine there, a messy incident with the turkey baster, but nothing to get in the way of the experience. Director says we could be tighter and guillotine must remain immobile, but during the All Hallow's Eve Ball I was accosted by some complete strangers who said they saw the show and loved it, and that I was the most evil thing there, so I'm happy. From this you may gather that my look at the Ball was not dissimilar. The difference is that at the Ball, you would only see anything if you were good at sorting blacks and withstanding strobes. There was a lot to see. Alternating more or less at random between the main stage and the Dungeon, we took in the Horrorwood Mannequins, parts of the fashion show, Celia Curtis and her Bed of Nails, Lola the Vamp, Juke Baritone, a number of friends, some decent DJs, GPKism and the usual on the A-frame. Kudos to the lead singer of the Mannequins, who leapt onstage wearing a Jack Skellington mask and opened their otherwise deathpunk set with "This is Halloween". And what could be more exhilerating than Juke Baritone's performance I've no idea! I mean, the crowd covered a lot of ground; cybergoth, full-on eighteenth century with masks, 1950s gone rotten, zombie make-up, street bondage, ropework, medical fetish, actual wheelchair, witch, fairy, spiderman and that guy with the knife stuck through his head (how the few mundies were coping I've no idea. Steph said this event had also sold out, so they must have known). And they were ALL pounding the stage edge and then vaulting up and dancing to a group of wonderfully hirsuite fellows wielding accordian, banjo and saxaphone, as well as guitar and drums. This might give you just the slightest taste: From Misc At one point, Jukebox crooned to the skull of his ex-wife, "why don't you love me any more?" But there was just this energy, you know? Dancing with my darling in the Dungeon, oh yes. It was nice of the organisers to turn on the chill wind and the nearly full moon! Actually, celebrating Beltane under the guise of Halloween works well for me. So, anti-season's greeting, my darkling sorority. Our season runs till Christmas interrupts everything good, so I look forward to not-actually-seeing-you soon! Brunch now. Current Mood: relaxed Current Music: I think we've found him on YouTube (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 19th, 2009
8:42 am	Brave Hearts and Strong Stomachs A news item on the Theatre of Blood has appeared. Now, if only they'd used a picture of us! We are all so very photogenic, especially Irving with his head in the guillotine. With two weeks to go until the opening night on the 30th, rehearsals are building up a good velocity. The three plays flow really well, from thriller to black comedy and thence to Orgy in the Lighthouse.  Which is especially photogenic and blasphemous to boot. I have learnt much about stage combat, the operation of guillotines and the history of the Newtown Theatre.  Did you know that the building was originally a masonic hall? Built in 1890 by rebel nationalist masons who had been suspended from the main lodge in the Newtown Town Hall? One subsequently became Mayor. The theatre has a, dare I say suitable atmosphere? And you can get a seat right next to the bar if you're early. Come one, come all, come often! Current Mood: naughty Current Music: The Sisters of Mercy, "Some Girls Wander By Mistake" (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
11:16 am	Bad Reception In New Orleans You remember the short film we made about the vampire with the mobile phone? Well: It will be screened in the Vampire Shorts program, that along with such events as a jazz funeral, a scavenger hunt in the French Quarter, a Blood Drive and the writers mixer in the Absinthe Den, will be making New Orleans even more vamp than it usually sounds over Halloween this year. I can't attend myself (being committed to the Theatre of Blood and all), but I hope that everyone who does has an incredible time. And enjoys the film, obviously. Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: "I got the ways and means... " (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
8:36 am	Happy Equinox This was the view from our front balcony at 5.00 am this morning. From Misc What was I doing awake at 5.00 am? I actually woke earlier. It just took me until then to conclude I was a) not dreaming, b) not suffering a migraine and c) that this was probably not a sign of my rite going really, really wrong... Current Mood: awake (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
9:01 pm	A Different Kind of Article It's probably also time to mention that I'm a finalist in this years Under the Blue Moon Art Award with my canvas, Autumn Oracle. The finalists will be exhibited in the Polymorph Gallery on Level 1, 7/82  Enmore Road from Tuesday, October 27th to November 6th. There is a colour photo here. Oh, there is lots to see at the festival this year! Current Mood: artistic (Comment on this)
Friday, September 11th, 2009
9:12 am	The Theatre of Blood I am pleased to be able to give you some advance warning of Sydney's latest and most intriguing new theatre. The Grand Guignol was a theatre operating out of a disused church in Paris between the 1890s and the 1960s. Its longevity was due to the house speciality; short plays treating horror, crime and the supernatural as graphically and realistically as possible. Such plays are now termed "Grand Guignol". The Theatre of Blood is proud to uphold this tradition, adapting three genuine French scripts for their inaugual program, including the infamous Orgy in the Lighthouse by Alfred Marchand. Of course, as a member of the company with roles in two of the current plays, anything I say must be taken with due scepticism. Such as, "a mesmerising display of violence, both physical and psychological". Or, "a risque black comedy". Or, "just wait until you see our guillotine". The Theatre of Blood opens at 11.00 pm on Friday, October 30th at the Newtown Theatre. This performance is part of this year's Under the Blue Moon festival, but the season continues same time, same place, each subsequent Friday till mid-December. Follow the link for more information, including our writer's open call for original scripts to be considered for future seasons. Current Mood: naughty (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
11:51 am	Crosses Crissed I'm afraid that Crosses To Bear, my crusaders vs vampires freeform, will not be running at this year's Gencon Australia. With three weeks to go, I have cancelled it due to insufficient advance interest and the fact it would be running against 4 other freeforms, most of whom are also struggling for numbers. I blame the zombies. Current Music: "Vampires Will Never Hurt You", My Chemical Romance (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
5:56 pm	I Thought the Law The August issue of Pyramid, the role-playing magazine put out  by Steve Jackson Games is out, containing "Dominion", an original campaign setting by yours truly. The theme of this issue is "Crime and Grime" and all the articles present a take on law enforcement in fantasy rpgs. Dominion concerns what happens when a strong ruler attempts to introduce universal law into a typical fantasy kingdom, complete with discussion of impact on the various degrees of society, a set of laws, their logical consequences and creative adventure hooks. The PCs are the magistrates and sherriffs negotiating the tensions and attempting to see justice done. There are also articles on simony - a crime that got you into the malbowges in Dante's Inferno but which doesn't really exist today - and the de Medicis and a discussion of cruel and unusual methods of punishment. All obviously slanted towards being useful to roleplayers and GMs. Perhaps especially GMs. Issue 3/10 of Pyramid may be viewed and purchased here. Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: "Do You Want To Date My Avatar?" (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 16th, 2009
10:39 am	Ow, my romance! So the quick polish and consistency edit took another month. Sue me.  I found another plot hole only this morning. It was easy enough to correct but by the Dark Lady, this process! The spell check was epic in itself. Did you know it's possible to max out the custom dictionary in Word? Surprised me. But in any case, there it is. Current Mood: jubilant (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 19th, 2009
2:41 pm	Ow, my neck! It's done. Necromance Act III is complete. The second draft totals 175,00 words, which as it happens is exactly what I predicted upon finishing Act I back in December. I finished Act II in May. The reason the final section took so much less time is not that it's shorter or required less changes, but that lacking a day job and with weapons practice washed out for five weeks running I have basically done nothing else except respond to a meme or two. Thus the extreme pallor, bad posture and urge to smite things. There is still some fine-tuning and continuity checking to be done and this is just the stuff I know about. My eager beta-readers will have to wait a week or so before a truly enormous stack of paper arrives on their doorsteps. On that note, I'd just like to observe how amazing it is that every different agent, publisher and competition manages to request a different set of chapters, synopses and cover letters.  If I may gently remind my betas, you volunteered. Then, while you read, I can polish Crosses To Bear and finish Cursebreaker before attending to the inevitable corrections and tweaks. And then? Well, then I guess it's on to Necropolitan. I should probably find a job. Maybe clean the apartment. Possibly go out somewhere that isn't a cemetery or full of people practising. But really, why change my habits just because I've finished the book? Think I'll throw a party. Current Mood: mellow Current Music: The Necromance soundtrack (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
9:30 am	First Lines Meme Via kateorman , a meme where writers post the first sentences of their works and works in progress. Complete but unpublished Secret Paths "This can be our world," said Kerstin, "It's about time we made our own world." Erina Hearn and the God of Death It was the scream that caught Erina Hearn. The Land of Dreams Gone Bad The parties have all gone on too long and the girl who hid too well peers out of the cracks, waiting for the game to end. (No one specified prose!) Reading the Game It can be disconcerting for the player of role-playing games to read a novel or watch a film and see her hobby depicted in a way that she barely recognises. (No one specified fiction!) In Progress Necromance As she stepped into Martin Place, the clocks were striking six and the dead men were closing in. Cursebreaker "In all my time as a cursebreaker, this is the single most apalling mess I have ever laid eyes on." The Cat's Cortege See the Mademoiselles Felix approach along the crowded hall; young, slim and neat in black coats and white gloves, huge eyes glancing this way and that. The Hand of Shepenwepet On the third day after her death did they bring the Lady Nefetari to the Place of Beauty and Hor the master embalmer was greatly wroth. Thelema Dwight: Occult Secretary From out of the east, as the sun approaches the horizon, Thelema Dwight approaches the door. Current Mood: creative Current Music: The arguments about the Hottest 100 (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 19th, 2009
2:00 pm	Are You Game? Registration for this year's Gencon Australia has now gone live. I can now announce that I will be running my freeform, Crosses To Bear, starting 6.00 pm on Saturday, 19 September 2009. -- The Transylvanian Alps, 1209 AD... "I don't care that the peasants said there was going to be a blizzard. They also said that in these mountains, wolves walk as do men and blood-drinking spirits ride the wind; I mean, really! This road will put us in Constantinople within the week, so long as we don't run into any Templars..." "So I was wrong about the blizzard. But I'm sure that's just the wind howling. Look, a light! A castle! May God be praised for his mercy!" -- Crosses To Bear is a freeform game for 30 upstanding crusaders, noble ladies, gallant troubadors, wily merchants, shady hangers-on, Templars and of course, their Hosts.  Costume is essential, characters may be pre-booked by contacting the designer and quoting your Gencon registration number. If any of this sounds familiar, it is indeed a reworking of the game I ran at Macquariecon '92. It is dedicated to the memory of my late conspirator, Emma Turkington. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 1st, 2009
9:18 am	Fishing for Inspiration Today, voting opens for Triple J's Hottest 100 Songs of All Time. As distinct from their annual round up, you can vote for your 10 favourite songs composed by anyone at any time. So I think we should all vote for 'O Fortuna' by Carl Orff. Yes, the opening track off the Carmina Burana. Who doesn't know it? Who doesn't love it? Who hasn't used it to pace the climactic scene of a story or RPG? Alright, probably quite a few people haven't done that but I know I'm not the only one. And my point stands. If any song in western culture deserves to make this list, it is this. "Oh Fortune, empress of the world!" Or as we sang in the Year Ten choir, "Oh for tuna, salmon and plaice..." Current Music: Actually, a group called Omen did a pretty good electro version. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
5:05 pm	A Festival of One Today I was seriously considering going into the city and seeing what the Sydney Writer's Festival had to offer. It's been running since Monday, but today had an interesting batch of panels, ranging in topic from novel vs.short stories to neuroplasticity. Instead, I stayed at home and wrote. As a result, I may now permit myself to announce the completion of :- NECROMANCE, DRAFT II, ACT II It improves on the first draft in many respects - the whole investigative thing moves along much better and the Act climax is now set up properly (along with several other things). But what caused the real problems and the increasing need to rewrite chapters from scratch was my decision to tone down the magical hijinks, made while redrafting Act I and in the pursuit of sense. Magic should always be the most sensible of plot elements, used for practical purposes in accordance with established laws. It should never be used gratuitously or for effect. Above all, it should never substitute for quick thinking, fast talking and unmitigated sneakiness. Perhaps I should mention my protagonist is a lawyer. It's a bit of a truism, but of the three keystone inspirations for this project, what really got the book started, not one still remains in the narrative. These were i) the corner cubicle in the office, into which people go only to return as souless zombies, ii) the fact that the "Palace Gates" in the Royal Botanic Garden actually did once lead to a palace, and iii) the spectral giant squid. I repeat, these things are NOT in the book. There are lawyers, magic and both the unliving and undying. And romance; you shall have to wait to find out how these things all fit together. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that. The early indications are that more of Act III may survive than I first assumed. The characters all have set emotional arcs and certain events, like the High Court appeal, simply have to occur. But the ending has changed completely from the one that put my alpha reader into shock (no, this was not a good thing). A certain somebody's dialogue will be almost completely rewritten, now that I know him better. And thanks to some painstaking foreshadowing, the Great Revelation that I botched completely the first time round should now work. And the big necromantic duel should be cool. You know, I really thought I'd have finished the whole thing by now. And be on to the sequel. Sigh. That's authorial time for you. Current Music: David is playing Guitar Hero: World Tour. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
11:28 am	Running the Gauntlet Got them yesterday. From Misc Custom-made to fit my ridiculously thin hands by local armourer and weapon-smith Adam McKay. Now I have to see if I can save up for one of his helmets. I've returned to medieval re-enactment after a distressingly long, health-related interval (so kind of like gothing). My memories suggested that if I was going to do this at all, I needed properly fitting gauntlets, so I shelled out and can now shell up. I've been training with the Black Ravens for several weeks now and I tell you, it beats the hell out of the gym! And could... (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 1st, 2009
10:03 am	The Battle Continues... From Cats Although some combatants are running out of energy. A fine Samhain to all! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
6:49 pm	But down in the Underground... It's personal, okay? Current Music: "Kartika", The Eternal (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
10:25 am	On the Big Scream! It's official! 'Bad Reception', a short film on which I have writing, production and acting credits, is screening in competition at the A Night of Horror film festival. The multi-faceted talents of jblum , jack_ryder , shellshear and mrteufel also feature to great advantage. Specifically, it is screening in Horror Comedies and Animations, shorts program #1 which starts at 4.00 pm on Saturday, March 28th at the Dendy, Newtown. Yes, a week from today! If you're in Sydney, you might want to pop along and have a laugh (in case you're wondering, we did mean it to be funny). If you're not in Sydney, try this link to get the general idea. Current Mood: artistic (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 14th, 2009
9:00 am	Confessions of an English Opium Voyeur I have been reading Thomas de Quincey, a 19th century English intellectual who was a contemporary of all the Romantic greats and friend to many. He is best known, however, for a circumstance enshrined in the title of his best known work: Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Some may also have heard of the sequel, Suspiria de Profundis. It was his best known work at the time, as well as being the one that has survived in the popular consciousness. This alone marks it as unusual. I came to it via my usual winding path, tracing contemporary pop cultural references back to the Weird Tales set and on to the gothic novel. My impetus to seek it out lay in seeing Dario Argento's Mother of Tears, the film which completes the trilogy of Suspiria and Inferno. I have long been aware that the inspiration for Argento's three archetypal witches lay in a section of Suspiria de Profundis, to which Fritz Leiber also alludes in his novel Our Lady of Darkness. Michael Moorcock lauds de Quincey in Tales of Wizardry and Wild Romance and Lovecraft and Clark Ashton-Smith are said to have taken inspiration, if nothing else. De Quincey spends some time at the start of the Confessions insisting that he is doing this as a warning to others who might be tempted to experiment in the same manner. But at the start of Suspiria, he further confesses this was but an excuse for him to record the substance of his dreams. So, having at last read them, what can I report? Or am I like the hero of Ashton-Smith's Ubbo-Sathla, who can only approach the primal text by reducing himself to protoplasm? My first observation may not be scintillating, but is I think important. De Quincey is self-consciously, unashamedly elitest. He is aware that he is part of a privileged class and considers himself gifted amongst them. He is not unaware of the social divisions and suffering of his time - indeed, the experiences of his adolesence grant him insights that haunt him the rest of his days - but he is not of the masses and will not pretend commonality with them. Which I for one find incredibly refreshing. "If a man 'whose talk is of oxen,' should become an Opium-eater, the probability is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) - he will dream about oxen: whereas, in the case before him, the reader will find that the Opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher..." I therefore qualify my comments: de Quincey is best appreciated by a well-read and above all sensitive soul. Much of both books is taken up with recollections of de Quincey's childhood and adolesence, which as he explains is necessary for the reader to understand his dreams. These are pages not to be regretted, both because he is utterly correct - the eventual impact is astounding - and the exquisite quality of both the reminisence and the prose. De Quincey wrote one novel, described as a gothic, which is not readily available and by reports appalling. This is ironic, because judging by the Confessions, his life formed a perfectly acceptable gothic novel and he himself an archetypical gothic protagonist. That these are usually female is, I think, to his credit. This next observation may be going out on a limb, but I further see in de Quincey a phenomenon I detect in such novels as The Monk and Melmoth the Wanderer. This is a tension between the accepted, Christian spirituality of the day and - everything else. De Quincey is especially troubled by the inconsistency between belief in Heaven and irrepressible human grief. The deaths of young children, a recurring motif in his life, can only be accepted in terms of a blessing. And yet such a transmutation seems to him both impossible and obscene. It is to deal with this that he, eventually, shares his vision of the Three Mothers. I have a sense that this is only with reluctance, out of a need for completion. Their appearence is carefully qualified with references to the permission of God. "Let us call them, therefore, Our Ladies of Sorrow. I know them thoroughly and have walked in all their kingdoms. Three sisters they are, of one mysterious household; and their paths are wide apart; but of their dominion there is no end... Like God, whose servants they are, they utter their pleasure, not by sounds that perish, or by words that go astray, but by signs in heaven - by changes on earth - by pulses in secret rivers - heraldries painted on darkness - and hieroglyphics written on the tablets of the brain. They wheeled in mazes; I spelled the steps. They telegraphed from afar; I read the signals. They conspired together; and on mirrors of darkness my eye traced the plots. Theirs were the symbols, - mine are the words." I will not speak casually of  Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum and Mater Tenebrarum. De Quincey's words should be read in context and no matter the actual time and location of their reading, I say you shall be in darkness and solitude and perhaps you too shall whisper, yes, them. These texts are dense and parts would probably be heavy going for someone who has not, for instance, managed to get through Melmoth the Wanderer. They are at time eccentric in their arrangement and by the author's own admission, Suspiria de Profundis is incomplete. But they are worth reading not only for the visions, but for the process they record, which may be considered in several lights. There is an addict and a depressive here, using every resource of his superior mind to work through his symptoms and by understanding, control them. Some commentators consider him a forerunner of Freud, though I would say at least, let it be Jung. There may also be an occultist here, albeit a conflicted one, recording his insights in a manner both qualified and daringly open. Perhaps there is another lineage of writings here, though one that would require much more reading on my part to trace. In summary, to read de Quincey is a worthwhile exercise and one would I recommend. As to eating opium, I really cannot say. But I wonder now more than ever how injecting drugs (morphine at the time) can have ever taken off, when a goblet of ruby-coloured laudanum could have such potent effects, was so much more elegant and could be readily obtained from the local pharmacist! Current Mood: contemplative (1 Comment |Comment on this)